


Forgotten and Remembered

by sungabraverday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e02 Chaos Rising, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/sungabraverday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missing years - how Cora survived the Hale house fire, years by herself, and four months in a hecatolite bank vault. It's never been easy, but she's taken care of herself. But it's not quite enough to fend of what's about to happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten and Remembered

She hadn't been in Beacon Hills for... god, years now. Seven. Seven long years, far too young to be out on her own, but there was nothing to teach you control like there being no other alternative. Because really, there wasn't.

She knew how it all changed. She ran from the building, a temper tantrum in full swing, into the woods and hid there. There's a cave complex in the woods, totally abandoned, and she was already twelve and clever and she had been stealing things away, blankets and snacks and clothes and stuff, and she hid there for days before she was ready to go home. But there was no home to go to.

All Cora saw was the hollowed out husk of the building and she knew that it was hunters and that she was the only one left. She could smell the death, so much death. And fire, well, that was the exact kind of smoky smell that obscured everything. There had to have been hundreds of people who had passed by, and she couldn't smell any of them. She didn't ask any questions, just slunk up to her cave once more.

She figured she'd survive best in a city, so off she went, everything she owned in a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. Beacon Hills held nothing for her but memories and grief and goodbyes she'd never get to say. No one would miss her.

She ran on preservation instincts, running through streets, doing odd jobs, scrounging, never thriving, crashing on couches when she could and sleeping in alleyways when she couldn't. They tried to put her in foster care a few times, but when she ran at each full moon, leaving the city to roam the woods, they forgot about her. Some packs tried to adopt her, but the words "Hale house fire" were enough to scare most of them away. She fell through the cracks of both human and werewolf society. Not even the hunters could find her, and she knows they tried. She lead them on several merry chases around the city, but she held her control and they never could prove that there was anything wrong in the light of day. No one remembered her.

Cora couldn't trust anyone, so she didn't. It was all as simple as that really. Her schooling was close to non-existent. She didn't have time, just trying to survive. And she moved, constantly, not just to San Francisco, which was easy, but to Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, even Las Vegas at one point. She learned the hard way, teaching herself things learned in library books, whatever was interesting, whatever could help her. Her life was simple: running when she needed, fighting when that wasn't an option, always staying alive. She took care of herself, and she grew up strong and hard, forged in the fire that had killed everyone she loved.

And then came the alphas, and she ran, god she ran, but they caught her anyway, and she put up a fight but she didn't stand a chance, and she knew it. An omega against a pack of alphas, but she did far better than she had any right to expect. And they - the girl, Kali, they called her - grabbed her wrists and held them tight and she was blindfolded and taken, hooded, trapped in all to many ways, and placed in a strange black room, with just a little light, and locked in.

The first week was hell. There were two other people in there, and it was exquisite psychological torture, and if she wasn't prepared to tear the alphas' throats out, she might have been impressed.

Because those two, they were pack. They were Derek's and Derek was alive and so was Uncle Peter (again? she didn't understand) and suddenly some things made more sense, but how had she never known? But she was back in Beacon Hills - she remembered the symbol on the door, and the other two said it was too. Back in her home town, burdened with the knowledge that she had living family and they didn't know, and it was a living hell. So close, so close, and yet so very, very far.

It took a little while, and then she realised why the alphas had chosen that particular vault in that particular bank for their cell. Because it was the full moon, and she couldn't feel it. The tides were blocked, and it was infuriating. She couldn't shift, and she needed too. She screamed herself hoarse that night, Erica's voice matching hers in ferocity if not volume, Boyd watching silently and angrily in the corner.

It happened again, and while she got to know Erica and Boyd, and while food was shoved at them on a daily basis, and while a couple of escape attempts were sharply rebuffed, it just got worse. Instead of screaming she sobbed in agony, and prayed to a god she didn't believe in for the day when they would let her go.

Just before the fourth full in the vault, they planned another attack. It was Erica's plan, and somehow the alphas knew, because they seized her by the wrists and beat her bloody and bruised and then the one the rest of them bowed to stabbed his nails into her spinal cord and stole her memories and her life. They didn't even bury her, just threw her in a side room and let her body go stiff.

After that the edge of the vault was surrounded by a ring of mountain ash, and she and Boyd said not a word. The alphas left the door open, just to be sure, the mountain ash an easier cage than the door had been.

They heard when the other werewolf broke in, the one that made Boyd sit up a bit straighter, and they tried to hold the same normal conversation. But he was found and attacked and fled, and she didn't know what he had seen, or who he was. She still allowed herself to hope.

"Isaac," Boyd whispered later. "If he escaped, he'll tell Derek. He'll help."

Cora prayed he was right. She wasn't sure if she could stand surviving another full moon without changing. And if she did change, then, well, she wasn't sure she wanted to be there for that either. She could feel the pain in her bones and she knew that all of her carefully wrought control, the years of practising and surviving on her own, would come to nought. 

That night, when the tides in her blood were screaming, there was a thumping sound from the side of the vault. More of a cracking, a shattering, and then a huge chunk of the wall came flying out followed promptly by not one, but two, werewolves. But more importantly, but the moon's rays, a rush of relief to starved bones, but also terror.

Boyd was already on his feet, growling, snarling half-transformed in an instant, and Cora only noted how poor his control before there was a voice, trying to reassure him. 

Derek.

And the other one getting a phone call in the background, telling him how much danger they were in, too late. And... was that Uncle Peter? God, it was. 

She forced herself to focus, to retract the claws that had grown unbidden, and pressing her fingernails into the palms of her hand, steadying herself. Lions in the coliseum, stronger and more deadly. It echoed the fight that every single muscle in her body was giving her. 

She couldn't hold it much longer. 

She walked out from where she had been leaning, obscured from their view, and watched Derek break. "Cora?" he asked, and then again, as if it was both a nightmare and an answer to his prayers. She felt about the same way about him.

"Derek, get out. Get out now," she said, voice trembling with the effort, but he didn't move.

The door opened and the alpha's magic user closed the mountain ash ring once more, and she couldn't hold herself back any more, moonlight streaming in from the lobby and from the hole in the wall, and god, she was vicious. She was going to tear the throat of any living thing in her way and she was going to rip chunks out of anyone who challenged her. The moon was in her veins and she was alive and she was predator and she was prey.

"Sister." The single word punched through her bloodlust, and in that moment, she knew exactly one thing.

She was going to kill her brother.

**Author's Note:**

> Cue Allison entering and Boyd and Cora running into the night to kill some poor innocent soul (presumably). So Derek doesn't die and Cora doesn't kill him and I am really glad of both these facts. 
> 
> Probably about to be jossed, but I figured I'd get it posted before that happened.


End file.
